Chapter 23 Born into a brutal family

In the fourth year of Heqing (565), Gao Wei, who was only 10 years old, became the emperor of the Northern Qi Dynasty and the queen of the Northern Qi Dynasty. The new emperor has ascended the throne, but the old emperor Qi Wucheng Emperor Gao Zhan, Gao Wei's father, is not dead at this time. It is "the emperor".Then why did he leave the good emperor inappropriate and pass the throne to his son who was still a child?It turned out that the Supreme Emperor met a comet. It is said that this is a sign of getting rid of the old and bringing in the new, and it can only be done by changing the emperor.So he passed the throne to his son, and became the Supreme Emperor himself, which is considered to be a heavenly phenomenon.

This sounds absurd.But to the Gao family of the Northern Qi royal family, this little fact is nothing.When Qi Xiaozhao Emperor Gao Yan, this comet of "removing the old and bringing forth the new" came once, so Gao Yan killed his nephew Gao Yin to "respond to the sky".The reason why Gao Zhan didn't kill anyone this time was not because he was kind, but because he had already killed his nephew Gao Bainian.Perhaps this series of killings has already made people dizzy, but this is too common for the Gao family.There were a total of six emperors in the Northern Qi Dynasty, and each succession of the throne was accompanied by swords and blood. The young emperor Gao Wei was passed on to him by his father, which is a rare exception.

This starts with the establishment of the Northern Qi Dynasty.At the end of the Western Jin Dynasty, the Central Plains entered a period of great chaos among the Five Hu and Sixteen Kingdoms. After several divisions and reunifications, the Northern Wei Dynasty established by the Xianbei finally unified the north.And Emperor Wei Xiaowen, the hero of the generation, is even more famous in the annals of history for his Sinicization reforms.However, every advantage has a disadvantage.Although the reforms of Emperor Wei Xiaowen promoted economic development and cultural exchanges, they reduced the status of soldiers from the six towns that were the military foundation of the Northern Wei Dynasty. In addition, political corruption and disparity between rich and poor later led to the uprising of soldiers from the six towns, which triggered A great social turmoil broke out, and the Northern Wei Dynasty perished in this turmoil.After the fall of the Northern Wei Dynasty, it was divided into Eastern and Western Wei, but its actual rulers were Gao Huan and Yu Wentai who grew up during the uprising in the Six Towns.Soon, the sons of these two men usurped the throne and established new dynasties.Gao Yang established the Northern Qi, and Yu Wenjue established the Northern Zhou.

In the early days of Qi Wenxuan Emperor Gao Yang's accession to the throne, he was still able to make great efforts to govern, and most of the foreign conquests were successful.But later he indulged in debauchery and was extremely violent.The minister he relied heavily on, Yang Min, who had made great contributions to the prosperity of the Northern Qi Dynasty, was also his brother-in-law.Once, he whipped Yang Min's back with a horsewhip, so that his gown was soaked in blood, and then he stabbed Yang Min's stomach with a knife.But Gao Yang was not reconciled, so he asked someone to put Yang Min alive into the coffin, nailed it with iron nails, and transported it out by car, which was counted as a funeral game.Fortunately, Yang Min's fate was fatal and he was rescued, so he was saved from death.Gao Yang once favored the Xue sisters who were born in kabuki.His sister, Chong Chong, asked him to be an official for her father. He was furious and sawed her to death with a saw.And that younger sister didn't recruit him or provoke him, just because she had a drink with Qinghe King Gaoyue when she was a kabuki, she aroused the emperor's nameless jealousy, first poisoned Qinghe King to death, and then chopped off this The younger sister's head was brought to the banquet to show to the officials, and then her body was dismembered, and her thigh bones were used to make a lute.Sometimes the emperor thought of her again, and would cry while playing the pipa: "It's so hard to get a beautiful woman again." This kind of metamorphosis is really creepy.In the end, the emperor died of alcohol poisoning, and his son Gao Yin became emperor.Gao Yin was kind and cowardly by nature, and Gao Yang was afraid that he would not be able to succeed to the throne in this state, so he personally trained him to chop off the heads of prisoners.But the timid prince trembled for a long time, and he cut his head several times but failed to cut off his head.Gao Yang was furious and whipped his son severely, which frightened the child into intermittent mental illness.But it did make his father guess right. Not long after Gao Yin came to the throne, he was abolished by his sixth uncle Gao Yan.Back then, Gao Yang had expected such an outcome, and told Gao Yan that if he wanted to seize Gao Yin's throne, he could take it away, but he must not be killed.But Gao Yan killed this nephew as soon as he came to the throne. He himself died of a sudden illness after only two years as emperor. When he died, he passed the throne to his ninth younger brother Gao Zhan, and asked him to treat his wife and children well.But the quality of being kind and repaying kindness is by no means the tradition of the Gao family. As soon as Gao Zhan came to the throne, he immediately summoned Gao Yan's son Gao Bainian, and asked the guards on the left and right to come forward and beat the fourteen-year-old boy until he was beaten. Running around the hall, blood was everywhere, dying.The poor child begged him for mercy, saying that he would rather be his slave, but Gao Zhan was unmoved, killed him with his own hands, and threw his body into the pool, where the water was all red.He was still afraid that the child was not dead, so he went to the back garden to watch his subordinates bury him.

Gao Zhan is the father of the little emperor Gao Wei, and he has perfectly demonstrated the family's killing tradition to this ten-year-old child.And Gao Wei's mother, Empress Hu, showed him another tradition of this family - licentiousness. Gao Zhan became the emperor, addicted to wine and sex every day, and Empress Hu was lonely in the palace, so she fell in love with one of Gao Zhan's confidantes and scholars.He Shikai is good at a game of "holding lances". Empress Hu said that she also wanted to learn, so Gao Zhan ordered He Shikai to teach her.With such convenient conditions, Empress Hu often flirted with Heshi, and the two gradually hooked up.Gao Zhan may have heard about this, but at this time he is making love with Li Zu'e, the empress of Emperor Wenxuan Gao Yang. Anyway, their Gao family's green hats are also worn by each other. Back then, Gao Yang raped his brother Gao Cheng's wife in order to repay Gao Cheng. During his lifetime, he molested his wife's revenge, so he didn't care about such an extra one, so he let Empress Hu and He Shikai do their best, and promoted He Shikai to be the servant of the Huangmen.After Gao Zhan died, Empress Dowager Hu and He Shikai became even more unscrupulous.When He Shikai was killed, Empress Dowager Hu was very sad and bored, so she fell in love with a monk named Tan Xian. The two often met privately in the meditation room. They all moved in.In addition to Monk Tanxian, Empress Dowager Hu also hooked up with many young monks. In order to deceive others, she dressed them all as nuns.Once Gao Wei entered the palace to pay his respects to his mother. When he saw two young and beautiful nuns, he coveted them so much that he forced them to sleep with them.But the two female nuns resisted to death, Gao Wei was furious, and ordered the servants to take off their clothes forcibly. Upon seeing it, it turned out that they were two young monks disguised as women.He was shocked and angry, and suddenly understood his mother's dirty behavior.So he killed those monks and moved Empress Dowager Hu to the North Palace, where she was claustrophobic.Later, the Northern Qi Dynasty perished, and Empress Dowager Hu was exiled to Chang'an, the capital of the Northern Zhou Dynasty. She had no means of making a living, so she became a prostitute.She didn't think it was hard, but enjoyed it, claiming that being a queen is not as fun as being a prostitute.It's astonishing how obscene it is.

Now that Gao Wei is the emperor, he is naturally obliged to continue to carry forward the various "glorious traditions" of his family.But he was only a ten-year-old boy at the time, and he had a licentious and cruel father "the Supreme Emperor", so he had always been honest.In the fourth year of Tiantong (568), the Supreme Emperor Gao Zhan died. Before he died, he held the hand of his wife and lover He Shikai and said, "Don't let me down, and help the young master well." Minister", the natural power is growing day by day, ministers fawn on him one after another, even worship him as "godfather" shamelessly.Once He Shi fell ill, and the doctor prescribed "Huanglong Decoction" for him, which was actually human feces that had been stored for many years.Of course He Shikai didn't want to drink such a disgusting thing.In order to please him, a minister who came to visit his "godfather" said that the food was not bad, and even demonstrated it to him. He picked up a large bowl of "Huanglong Soup" and drank it down.He Shikai was greatly moved and immediately promoted the minister.

He Shikai's power aroused the dissatisfaction of Langya Wang Gaoyan.Gao Yan was the third son of Gao Zhan, who was favored by his father since he was a child, and his clothes and accessories were the same as that of Emperor Gao Wei.Once he saw Xin Bingzao Li who was paying tribute at Gaowei, and he said angrily: "My brother has this thing, why don't I have it?" The princes and ministers all bowed and feared.He Shikai was very afraid of him. He once said to others that King Langya had sharp eyes, and he didn't feel nervous in front of the emperor, but standing in front of him for a while would make him sweat profusely.Gao Yan also hated him very much. When he saw that he was building a mansion, he sarcastically said: I am afraid that before the mansion is finished, the owner of the mansion will be finished.Knowing that Feng Zicong, Empress Dowager Hu's brother-in-law, did not get along with He Shikai, he planned with him to ambush soldiers outside the gate of the beast in the middle of the night, and captured He Shikai when he went to court the next day, and sent his henchmen to kill him.Originally, Gao Yan intended to kill Heshi, but he couldn't control it once he started, and his followers forced him to kill Gao Wei, the empress master. Gao Yan led more than 3,000 guards to the palace. break in.Gao Wei was frightened to death, and ordered four hundred soldiers to put on armor and wield swords in a panic, and go out to resist.Minister Hu Luguang came to persuade him, saying that he was the emperor, as long as he showed his face, those rioters would give up.Gao Wei acted according to the plan, and sure enough, the rebellion was quelled, and Gao Yan was arrested in the palace and locked up, and then secretly killed him.He personally shot Gao Yan's disciples with a bow and arrow, and dismembered the violent corpses to vent his anger.Gao Yan's four posthumous sons were also killed.Hu Luguang originally made great contributions to him, but because he offended Gao Wei's favorite minister, he was framed for treason and was also killed.The little emperor started to rule in person, and he has gradually shown his qualities as a tyrant and a faint king.